Friday, October 11, 2013

Creating Monsters

Hey Everyone, Conquest here and we are going to talk about creating monsters today!The character bio of the antagonist in your story is as important as
the protagonist. Sometimes it’s difficult to remember that the bad guy
has to be as completely fleshed out as the good guy. He needs
personality traits, he needs general repetitive sayings, and he needs
motivations. A truly believable monster will have a definite reason for
what he’s doing.I try to think of it as an experiment in profiling. Whether you are
using a supernatural creature or a human being, you need to know how
your monster came to be who he is today. Fully knowing his back story
will help you write him better. You don’t have to give your readers
his entire life’s story, but knowing it will help make him more
believable.Let’s take a look at some popular monsters and see how they add up in the believability category.Frankenstein:Made of many different men. Amazing strength. Lacking
intelligence. Capable of strong emotion. (Uh oh....there’s the culprit
right there. Strong emotion is what drives poor Frankenstein. Most of
us can identify with him because we are also capable of the same thing.
His emotion controls his motivations, so we understand why he’s doing
what he does.)Freddy Kruger:Locked in spirit realm, can only interact when the victim is in a
dream state. Omnipotent in dream state. Can control every aspect of
victim’s dream. Deadly. Warped sense of humor. Filled with rage.
Seeks vengeance on everyone he can find. (Uh oh.....again strong
emotion. Freddy was burned alive by the parents of the children he
allegedly hurt in real life. He genuinely feels the need for
retribution.)Hannibal Lector:Seemingly unemotional. Serial Killer. Highly intelligent. Vicious,
brutal, sadistic, narcissistic, psychopath. Now Hannibal is much more
complex than the previous two characters. Throughout the books we see
traces of humanity. We do see some emotionally motivated actions, but
for the most part he seems incapable of any real emotion other than
anger. Until you get to Hannibal Rising. When you go back to the
beginning and see all the traumatic events he endured, your initial
hatred and disgust for the monster transforms. By then we can clearly
see how he ended up being who he is and why he kills.These are the things that make a monster unforgettable. And that’s
exactly the type of antagonist you want to have in your story. So when
you are writing, don’t skimp on the bad guy. Be sure he has grounded
motivations for what he’s doing.